Thanks to: All the reviewers and readers, and the War Room. ^_^
Special Thanks - Special thanks go out to Porcelain, Keiran, and Lethanon, great fanartists (and fan-song composer). I enjoy the stuff so much!! ^__^ *glompage* And to Arith and Merith, for looking stuff over for me.
"It is easy to fly into a passion--anybody can do that--but to be angry with the right person and at the right time and with the right object and in the right way--that is not easy, and it is not everyone who can do it."
--- Aristotle
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned."
--- Buddha
"It makes me mad when people say I turned and ran like a scared rabbit. Maybe it was like an angry rabbit, who was going to fight in another fight, away from the first fight."
--- Jack Handey
Requiem for the Sinners Part 29
Devils Chained
"Heero."
The Wing pilot didn't look up from where he was doing logistics on one of the Legion fighters. He had asked Howard what the old tech needed help with in the hangars, and Howard had told him. He put himself to work. When he was working, he didn't have to think.
Now he concentrated completely on his task, and the sound of that soft voice over him did nothing but make him narrow his eyes as he focused on the circuit board he was working on.
"Heero, you can't ignore me forever."
He rolled out from underneath the mobile suit and pulled the welding helmet off his head, throwing it to the cement. His skin was slicked with sweat, his hair plastered damply to his skull. He glared coldly at the braided man standing over him, trying to ignore the bewildered, apologetic look on Duo's face.
"... Try me."
Making a soft sound like a growl under his breath, Heero sat up on the bench trolley, putting his small welding torch back in the flame-retardant bag slung at his side. He stood up and shoved the trolley back under the ship with a resounding bang.
"Heero-"
"I told you to stay away from me, Maxwell."
He walked away without looking at Duo's face, unwilling to see the hurt there.
"Heero... Heero! Dammit, will you look at me when I'm trying to talk to you?"
Heero ignored Duo's words, walking out of the hangar and into the empty corridors leading to the pilots' quarters. He could hear Duo's footsteps following him, the steady thuds of the general's boots. When he felt a hand grab him by the shoulder, he whirled around, fist raised.
Duo didn't look away. His eyes remained steady on Heero's, a hurt, disconcerted expression on his face. Slowly, taking a deep breath, Heero lowered his hand, jerking out of Duo's grasp. "What?"
Duo sighed harshly. He rubbed one hand across his face in an exasperated, furious gesture. "Heero, I'm trying to say I'm sorry. I didn't mean those things I said. You know that."
"The hell you didn't." Heero smiled, and Duo recoiled from the gentle expression. Heero put a hand on Duo's shoulder. "You meant it and you know it. You're no different than them, Duo. Relena and J and all the rest. You can fool yourself and you can fool your men... but you'll never fool me."
He pulled away and kept walking towards the room that Marge moved him into, one near Wufei's room.
I'm not going to feel sorry... I've felt sorry for weeks now, and I'm sick of it, Heero thought, his head lowered as he walked away, as if he was walking into a hard wind he had to fight against. I'm too old for this shit now.
"Jesus, Heero... I'd rather see you dead than like this," he heard Duo whisper from behind him.
Heero looked over his shoulder, letting his gaze trail down to Duo's hip, where the general's pistol was slung in a cross-holster. When he brought his eyes back up to Duo's, they narrowed in contempt.
"... Then you should have been a better shot."
He felt a kind of deep, horrible satisfaction at the stricken look on Duo's face.
"What do you want me to say?!" Duo shouted, advancing on him like a storm. Heero stood his ground, immovable. "What in the hell do you want me to say!? Yeah, I meant it! But I shouldn't have said it! What do you want from me, Heero?!"
Heero moved before Duo even knew he was going to. He shoved the L2 pilot into the wall, hard enough to bruise, but not hard enough to break anything, pinning Duo with his weight, almost hip to hip. He was close enough to feel Duo's breath on his face. Close enough to kiss.
"What do you want from me, Duo?" Heero spoke in a whisper, his lips almost close enough to touch Duo's. His eyes were half-lidded. Dangerous. "Why am I here?"
He let his lips brush over the skin of Duo's neck, feeling Duo's hand come up to rest on the back of his neck unconsciously. He spoke as he let his breath brush over Duo's skin, feeling the general's arm break out in goosebumps under his hand, feeling Duo tense under his touch.
"Why am I here? What do you want with me?" His lips traveled to Duo's jaw, and he felt rather than heard Duo's answering whimper. "You want me to kill for you, Duo? You want me to fuck you? Is this what you want?"
"Heero..." Duo's voice was choked, hoarse.
Heero moved to Duo's ear, speaking directly into it, his words lethally soft.
"What did you whisper to her, Duo? What did you say, before you killed her?"
Duo jerked beneath him, and Heero pulled back abruptly, his gaze cold. Duo looked back at him, but his eyes were shining under the overhead lights. Heero nodded his head a little, as if confirming something to himself.
"... I thought so."
He turned away again, but stilled as he heard Duo's soft answer.
"I love you, Heero."
Heero looked over his shoulder, a broken, vulnerable look crossing his face, before he closed his eyes, shutting it away again. He ran his hands through his hair, sighing, then shook his head.
"... That isn't enough."
"It's all I have." Duo never looked away. When he spoke again, his voice was a whisper. "Please don't walk away from me again, Heero."
Don't walk away again. Heero felt his heart lurch with a pang of guilt he didn't want to acknowledge. He tried to force himself to turn and walk away, but his feet wouldn't cooperate. When Duo came forward and put his arms around Heero's neck, laying his head against Heero's chest, Heero surpressed the urge to jerk away. His bag of tools hit the cement floor with a racket that echoed through the empty halls.
He heard Duo's soft, almost inaudible words against his neck, like a prayer.
"Hate me, Heero. Hate me... but don't leave."
Heero lowered his head, closing his eyes. It was a few moments before he spoke again, his voice muffled against Duo's hair.
"... I don't hate you. It'd be easier if I did."
Duo shifted under him, and Heero drew back slightly. He exhaled hard in surprise when he saw the tears in Duo's eyes.
"I thought boys weren't supposed to cry, Duo," he said, his voice choked. He felt as if he had taken a hard blow, and hadn't realized what hit him yet.
"We're not boys anymore, Heero," Duo replied, lowering his head quickly back against Heero's chest before Heero could see the tears spill over and streak down his face. Heero could feel Duo's hands clenched in the back of the worn tee-shirt another tech had loaned to him.
He sighed, allowing his arms to come up around Duo's shoulders, holding the braided man to him.
"I know, Duo. ...I know."
~*~
Duo...
Harper flicked a cigarette over the edge of the ship he was sitting on, then laid back on it, looking up through the skylights that looked out onto space beyond the colony. He folded his arms behind his head as he gazed up at the stars.
He closed his eyes, feeling the exhaustion of a few nights without sleep creeping up at him all at once. He had been up for nights trying to get the ships ready for the upcoming Preventer attacks.
"May I sit here, or is this ship taken?"
Harper looked up, seeing Wufei standing over him. He sat up, startled that the Chinese man could come up on him so silently.
He shrugged noncommitally, a soft grunt issuing from him that could be taken as either disdain or acceptance. "Suit yourself."
"Thank you." Wufei sat down a few feet away from him, crossing his legs beneath him. He looked down on the hangar, his expression still as he gazed at all of the ships and workers beneath him."
Harper followed his eyes, then pulled another cigarette from his pocket, lighting it with the practiced ease of a chain-smoker.
Wufei didn't move his head, but dark obsidian eyes cut at the blond pilot next to him.
Harper noticed the glance and exhaled at Wufei, causing the Chinese man to wave the smoke away irritably. Harper laughed. "Sorry, Chang, this is the smoking section of the hangar."
"Those things will kill you."
"And a Preventer bullet won't?"
"... Point taken."
Harper took a deep drag of the cigarette, then blew smoke up at the ceiling. "Course... not like any Preventer alive could take me down."
"I could."
The L2 vice-general laughed. "Yeah, right. You couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag, much less kill me."
Wufei glared coldly over at the blond man, furious. "Choose your time and weapon of choice. There are many people I have a problem killing without warrant, but you are not one of them."
Harper glanced over at him. "Last time we fought, you ended up a hostage in your underwear. Don't push your luck."
Wufei stood up. "Cur!"
Harper pulled himself to his feet, throwing his cigarette to the metal at his feet, glaring balefully down at the shorter pilot. "Tightass!"
"Murderer!"
"Greencoat!"
An angry voice bellowed up from the floor of the hangar, cutting them off before another insult could be hurled. "Both of you up there, shut the hell up before I throw both your asses off! There's people trying to work down here!!"
The two pilots looked over the edge of the ship, chagrined. They glanced at each other, wary and still a little angry.
"Well..." Wufei said, sitting back down cautiously. He didn't look in Harper's direction, but his attention was keenly focused on the other pilot, in case there was a fight to be carried out.
Harper sat back down, picking up his cigarette where it had hit the metal. It was still lit. He took a short drag, flicking the tip.
The two were silent for a few moments.
"How poor are they that have not patience," Wufei said softly, almost under his breath. He took a deep breath.
"Othello, Act Two, Scene.... ah, fuck it. I don't remember."
Wufei looked over at the blond pilot with a start, his expression grudgingly impressed. "You know Shakespeare?"
Harper looked up at him, smirking a little. "Maybe. Why?"
Wufei rolled his eyes at the smug expression, looking away to watch a group of techs run logistics on one of the ships. "No reason, you just don't seem the type."
Harper scowled. "And just what in the hell is that supposed to mean?"
A small smile touched the corners of Wufei's mouth. "It means that you're a roughneck lowlife whom one wouldn't expect to be able to read the back of a cereal box, much less quote Shakespeare."
Harper started to glare, but then just smiled, flicking his second cigarette over the side. "I can live with that. I like to be underestimated by my enemies."
"Which are probably numerous, given your personality."
Harper snorted, leaning back again and closing his eyes. He yawned widely. "Yeah, well, you aren't exactly a fuckin' sweetheart, Chang. If you were lyin' in the middle of the street and on fire, I wouldn't put you out to piss on you."
"The feeling is mutual."
TBC...
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